Getting Lucky with Lucky Ali

I was not a huge fan of Lucky Ali until I was given that masterpiece called ‘Get Lucky’ by my brother. But then, that one cassette changed things for me and Lucky Ali was one of the biggest names in music for me. After some time I reached college and met a guy called Vaidyanathan aka ydntn aka YD (letters going with years), who was mad about Lucky Ali, and who happened to become one of my closest friends in the coming years. I guess at that time, the only thing he ‘actually’ knew about Hindi music was Lucky Ali. Yes, he had literally used up his cassette of Get Lucky and eventually bought another one after some time.

Six and half years down the line, we were all together, some of us college friends, actually for the Aero Show (which I skipped) in Bangalore but also planning to go for the Bryan Adams concert while I got to know from one of the friends that Lucky Ali would also be playing the same night, at UB City. Now, this YD guy and I were decided that we were going for the Lucky Ali show even thought we had got passes for Bryan Adams concert. Eventually, we all went to Lucky Ali and though we couldn’t get to hear Summer of 69, we got lucky with Lucky Ali, and also, Sachin Tendulkar.

Well, let me come to the concert first. When we reached there, there was a band called Junkyard Groove playing there. While I remember not taking the band seriously when they came to VIT when I was there, this time I liked a few of their songs, including a Twinkle Twinkle little star, how much I love you just the way you are. And after JYG were gone, there was Lucky Ali.
I remembered the last photo of Lucky Ali from his Facebook profile where he sported a beard. But when he came up on the stage, he was simply shining in his shades and red sweater.

He started with a small speech thanking all and saying he’d be singing some of his new album’s songs and started with one song that sounded like a variation of Kaho naa pyaar hai’s ik pal ka jeena and that’s when I was all afraid if this was how the show was going to be. But then I got that Lucky had some other plans, when he suddenly burst into a-aa-a-aa-o-aa-a-aa and the whole original song. As you can easily guess, public response was phenomenal.

And then, lucky went on to sing his old hits like o sanam, sunoh, mausam, nahi rakhta dil mein, tere mere sath, kitni haseen zindagi, tu kaun hai, anjaani rahon mein, aa bhi ja, jaane kya dhoondhta hai, some of his new songs from Xsuie, dil gaaye ja and o raahi. He also sang his hits from new movies, that is hairat from Anjaana Anjaani and bekaraar from Paathshala. Also, once on request of fans sitting there, he suddenly broke into Gori teri aankhen kahen, and while he could not sing all the lines himself, he asked people to fill in and later told that he had not rehearsed the song for the gig. But the most interesting part was the last song he sang, Aao Twist Karen, from his father Mehmood’s movie Bhoot Bangla.

The concert, being held in the UB City amphitheater, had quite a personal feel to it, since the amphitheater is not too large and while almost everyone could see him without any screens being used, the sound was also not much of humdrum but in more of an acoustic setting and the songs were flowing in smoothly. Also, I’d like to mention the musicians there who were just wonderful, especially the guy on Violin (If I remember the name right, it was Manoj) who made the songs of Sur a delight to listen to.

Lucky Ali’s daughter Tasmia sang O Rahi and a few more songs with him while his younger kids Saara and Raiyan were cheering from the audiences.